A writer must “know and have an ever-present consciousness that this world is a world of fools and rogues… tormented with envy, consumed with vanity; selfish, false, cruel, cursed with illusions… He should free himself of all doctrines, theories, etiquettes, politics…” —Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?). “The nobility of the writer's occupation lies in resisting oppression, thus in accepting isolation” —Albert Camus (1913-1960). “What are you gonna do” —Bertha Brown (1895-1987).

Tuesday, June 13, 2017

WTTW Removed My Comment This Morning

Illinois’ new fiscal year begins July
1 and lawmakers are set to reconvene in Springfield next week. The state is
creeping up on it’s [sic] third year without a budget. But lawmakers did pass
about 500 bills during the spring legislative session. The Illinois Senate
passed a budget, but the House wouldn’t even bring it to a vote before
adjourning May 31. The state owes nearly $15 billion in unpaid bills—and if a
budget isn’t passed, the backlog could swell to $24 billion.

The Illinois Senate passed a budget, but the House
didn’t even call a budget bill before adjourning. Why? And who is to blame
for the impasse?

McSweeney (R): It
rests with all of us. We’re destroying the state. We’re below investment grade,
gutting social services and universities are losing people. Now in a situation
that we’re spending more money than we ever planned or dreamed of. We all share
the blame and need to stop pointing fingers and do something.

Martwick (D): Who’s
to blame? Simple. The budget has been hijacked by the governor’s office since
day one. We offered further cuts and to reinstate the expired taxes. And the
governor said not until I get my political agenda. I don’t know how you can
pass blame on anybody else. The Senate got the work done. We did procurement
reform just like he wanted, he got government consolidation, he wanted to sell
the Thompson Center. He got victory after victory after victory. I don’t know
how you blame it on anybody else.

Morrison (R):
Who’s to blame? Rauner assumed too much when he took office that majority party
would be willing to work with him. The Democratic leadership underestimated how
committed Rauner was to reforms. So both sides are pretty solidly entrenched.

Sente (D):
The campaigning hasn’t stopped. It’s a new world. Everyone is considering what
do you say aloud? It’s affecting the ability for us to get together.

What should happen?

McSweeney: The
governor needs to call a special session. Stop gap budgets are going to make
things worse. We need a real budget.

Martwick: I made
the argument to my caucus, I said “let’s vote on it and show the courage to do
it.” But there were not enough members to pass a budget. We need 60 votes but
the governor already said he’s going to veto the Senate budget. Why vote on it
when he says he’s going to veto it? Why keep doing this exercise in futility?

Morrison: If
we could go back in time, we should have shut down the government back in 2015.
It would have force folks to the table sooner. Lawmaker paychecks should’ve
been cutoff in 2015. The schools opened on time because the k-12 budget passed.
State employees continued to work and get paid. Generally speaking most IL
residents didn’t feel it. Then stop gap spending plan in 2016 passed to provide
legal authority to pay bills as moneys came in. We need either massive taxes or
an austerity budget. I’m on side of austerity budget. That would mean
significant cuts to the k-12 budget, to higher ed, everything state spends
money on would have to be cut. Most can’t take the heat of spending cuts. As a
result, we go deeper and deeper in debt. Some constituents are willing to pay a
little more tax increase if there is pension reform, streamlining government,
etc. Almost no one is willing to pay double income taxes which is what we’d have
to do to pay the bills.

Sente:
I’m in a budget group and we’re looking at spending caps, what is level of
responsible cuts, how to pay down unpaid bills. We’re looking at Midwestern
neighbors for revenue ideas, and a budget that’s passable with bipartisan
support. Gov. Rauner said he needs three things: procurement reform, local
government consolidation, criminal justice reform. Those have passed with a
good amount of bipartisan support. But then the governor said it wasn’t enough.
It is enough for our group. We’re also looking at what else is important to our
constituents? So out budget group is looking at six reforms—which would be
amazing.

The Senate passed $5.4 billion revenue in the form
of tax hikes. But Governor Rauner said he’d veto the Senate’s budget bill. Does
the state have to raise taxes to help solve the budget crisis?

McSweeney: That
is the Rauner plan. I oppose it. We have done nothing to restore confidence of
our government. Current spending is higher than it was under Pat Quinn and we
have done nothing to reform pensions. Senate passed pension reform. We need to
rework Medicaid. Not just eliminate waste and fraud. The administrative costs
are also increasing without a budget. It’s a scandal that universities are
being held hostage. K-12 budget increased last year. We don’t have the money.
My view is that we live within existing revenue forecast. I can’t support
additional review.

Martwick: That is
the most unfortunate side of the impasse. There are people who have the courage
to tell citizens what’s coming. Everyone knows there’s no way to cut waste and
balance budget without a tax increase. Every budget Rauner’s proposed have cuts
that do more harm than good and that have hidden tax increases. The truth is
the governor has no ability to cut without raising taxes.

Morrison: For
sake of state, I hope there is a budget soon. The longer we go, the deeper in
debt we get. We are pushing for the cuts and reforms necessary. But it looks
like tax increase is inevitable. When it happens, then we will hopefully have
the maximum amount of cuts and structural reform to actually move forward as a
state. If all we do is massively raise taxes without reform, we will see even
more people leave the state. If another 100,000 people leave state, that
doesn’t shrink our pension obligations. It just shrinks the number of people
who shoulder the burden.

Sente: We owe it
to people to pay that $14.8 billion backlog of bills then get the bills paid
within a cycle of 30 days, or 14 days or 60 days – whatever we decide. These
are real people and businesses and they are going under and being hurt. We
cannot pay the backlog and for the current year without revenue. Borrowing is
not the way to go or taking it away from local governments.

Some people are saying there won’t be a budget until
2018. Your reaction?

McSweeney: Unacceptable.
I don’t want to think about it. We will have $23 billion of unpaid bills by
next June 30th. We can’t go on like this. Anybody who does accept that is doing
a disservice to state.

Martwick: That
would be atrocious. I can’t even imagine. We as a government have for years
pushed off our fiscal responsibilities. This accumulation of debts is fiscally
irresponsible. We are making it worse for tomorrow. How anybody is willing to
do that, I’ll never know.

Morrison: I
hope they’re wrong. I don’t have
difficulty saying no to cuts and going in front of public employees and saying
we have to dramatically change pension plans. I do have colleagues who are
queasy saying things like that...

"I
don’t have difficulty saying no to cuts and going in front of public employees
and saying we have to dramatically change pension plans. I do have colleagues
who are queasy saying things like that” - Rep. Morrison

Politicians,
who lack moral sensibility and legal understanding, have no qualms about
stealing money from the public pension funds and ignoring the Illinois Supreme
Court’s ruling against any form of unconstitutional public pension theft. To
repeal the “Pension Protection Clause” is to attack public employees’ and
retirees’ rights to a constitutionally-guaranteed compensation. This can never
be legally or morally justified, especially when Illinois politicians have
stolen money that was supposed to be paid into the public pension plans for
decades to avoid raising taxes and for special interests.

The
“Pension Protection Clause” is a binding legal commitment and requirement of
justice, and that justice demands we keep our covenants with one another: for
when legislators swear an oath to uphold the State and U.S. Constitutions, then
citizens of Illinois have also acquired the right to expect that they will
uphold that pledge. This is a matter of important legal and moral concern for
all citizens of Illinois, for all legal claims are validated by a moral
framework since the concept of justice is grounded in ethics and morality.

According
to Eric M. Madiar, former Parliamentarian to Illinois Senate President John
Cullerton in 2015, “…Public Act 98­0599 [the senate bill that attempted to
diminish and impair Article XIII, Section 5 in December 2013] was not a
response to an unknown or unforeseeable problem, but rather a response to ‘a
crisis for which the General Assembly is largely responsible.’ The Illinois
Supreme Court further found that the Act was not the least restrictive means
the State could have used to address the problem, but ‘an expedient to break a
political stalemate.’

“In
addition, the court indicated that the Act was tantamount to a taking of
private property because the Act failed to distribute the burdens of pension
funding evenly among Illinoisans let alone the State’s contract partners. The
court explained that the U.S. Constitution ‘bar[s] Government from forcing some
people alone to bear public burdens which, in all fairness and justice, should
be borne by the public as a whole.’

“Whether
under a Contract Clause or Takings theory, the same arguments that prevailed in
the Pension Reform decision against Public Act 98­0599 would equally apply to
the… proposed amendment. As a result, the proposal amendment does not offer a
plausible path to unilaterally reduce the fiscal burden of State and local
pension obligations…”

Amending
the Article XIII, Section 5 of the Illinois Constitution would not reduce the
state systems’ current $130+ billion unfunded liability; it would not address
the real fiscal issue caused by the state’s pension debt: how to amortize the
$130+ billion debt owed to the five state-sponsored retirement systems in a
feasible way. It would also take three-fifths of the members elected to each
house of the General Assembly.

It
is shameful that a few policymakers are willing to renege on a guaranteed
constitutional contract when they are the debtors. It is legally and morally
wrong to modify public employees’ contractual rights and benefits prospectively
and retroactively when there are legal and ethical ways to address the pension
debt problem, such as through pension debt reform and revenue restructuring.
Legal and moral sense dictates that all members of the Illinois General
Assembly must align with the U.S. and State Constitutions and sanction the
vested rights of its middle-class public employees.

Read
the State and U.S. Constitutions: Article 1, Section 16 of the Illinois
Constitution: “No ex post facto law or law impairing the obligation of
contracts… shall be passed”; read Article 1, Section 10 of the United States
Constitution: “No State shall… pass any… ex post facto Law, or Law impairing
the Obligation of Contracts…” To also ignore the Fifth and Fourteenth
Amendments of the U.S. Constitution and change laws that protect one group of
people is to ignore due process and equal protection of the laws that guarantee
contractual agreements.

9 comments:

Of course WTTW removed your comment. You are pointing out past Supreme Court cases and decisions, as well as the general amnesia regarding the Il Supreme Court's scolding unanimous decision finding the last attempt at pension theft unconstitutional.

Legislators have their heads in the sand, they remain unable to make any decision, and instead have sought survival positions during the impasse with the current ersatz governor.

WTTW plays into that continuation of impasse and concentration on the same issues. No really tough questions are asked as follow-up. No discussion of the untenable position the state has backed into given this governor and loggerheads. Chicago Tonight holds no one's feet to the fire; instead, they've become an ambulance chaser, satisfied with a single question to four in row, and then again, and then again.

“…Gov. Bruce Rauner’s family foundation gave the Illinois Policy Institute at least $625,000 from 2009 to 2013 – before he was governor...” (Illinois News Network Buying Illinois Radio Network by Bernard Schoenburg).

"IPI is an anti-union, anti-public education lobbying group dedicated to the privatization of public schools and the elimination of public employee pensions. The Illinois Policy Institute is funded by conservative activists like the Koch brothers" (The Illinois Education Association).

PBS and NPR education news is "brought to you by a generous gift from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation." That means that they actually have complete control of any and all news regarding teachers, public education, teacher pensions, teacher unions, etc. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is nearly tax-free and allowed by law to invest its funds in order to "grow" (profit) the foundation; the Grow money is also tax-free. It is heavily invested in non-union charter schools and supports anti-union organizations as well as supporting various PACs that are anti-union. Union employees have traditionally had pensions as part of their contracts.The octopus of big money gives token efforts at "both" sides of an argument. It does not tolerate truth that could in any way actually harm their subversive activities and "grow" investments.WTTW is no exception.

Donors Trust has injected nearly $400 million into free-market causes, thanks in large part to contributions by dozens of private foundations run by wealthy executives or their families. These foundations have often sought anonymity by passing their grants through Donors Trust, but a Center for Public Integrity review of IRS records reveals some of the largest backers of Donors Trust in recent years:

Donors Trust has given grants to three national organizations that coordinate free-market policy and media efforts in the states: the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the State Policy Network (SPN), and the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity (FCGPI). In addition to these umbrella organizations, Donors Trust has directly funded at least 51 state-based think tanks in nearly every state since 2007:

And so goes public television...not so public anymore, & about to be even less so very soon.Came home, turned it on expecting to see Frontline or P.O.V. But, noooo...pledge night...some nice, apolitical music.

We can no longer call WTTW/PBS public media. They don't serve the public. They are beholden to the same corporate donors as the politicians and they will censor what they don't like. They're programming is pure pap with an occasional good show as long as it doesn't berate their financial supporters and ideologues.

On the issue of funding: God forbid our so-called Blue state should have an amendment for a progressive income tax so that everyone pays into the system, including the corporations, 73% of whom currently don't pay into the State of Illinois coffers. From the local levels on up, I go to meetings and the same buzz words are used: "they'll leave if we tax them; they'll leave if they have to pay a bare minimum wage or a few days of sick pay." These are all ALEC/Chamber of Commerce lies. So WTTW and all the shadow organizations mentioned in Glen's rejected letter, just repeat and repeat the lies. What I really find laughable is the great concern that companies will leave the village or state if we tax them--wake up people; you're being duped because these same corporations are sending jobs and factories overseas for greater profit no matter what happens here; they're leaving no matter what we do and they're certainly not willing to pay their fair share of taxes while they're here. Many of us know that all they care about is bankrupting our social programs, getting rid of teachers' unions--all unions--bringing in charter schools, and selling off the commons to their millionaire and billionaire friends. All they care about is privatizing everything. If you go to enough government meetings, from the library boards, to school boards, to village boards, to Springfield, and nationwide, you hear the same exact message in code words--all they mean is--don't tax the rich--put the burden on those other people by imposing regressive sales tax or higher real estate taxes, the ones who can least afford to pay them.

So, we have a pattern of censorship in the media from corporate Dems to right-wing ideologues and billionaires. they don't want the message to reflect any other thinking but theirs. Fear, fear, fear. And free markets, meaning nothing trickles down to help workers and society as a whole.

Free market principles are supported by neo-conservatism or neo-liberalism and perpetuated by a “corporatists’ crusade”; they are aligned with the policies of the “Chicago School” ideologues, the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund. These doctrines perpetrate a blitzkrieg deconstruction of the middle class, privatization of public ownership and industry (downsizing and parceling out public companies and services to private interests), government deregulation and cuts to spending (thus, stimulating deep economic recessions) and cutbacks or the elimination of the public sphere and all social funding – hence, turning the working class into the “disposable poor” – to loosen control of the flow of money and to produce “freer trade” in the global market marked by an intransigent belief that “it should be left to correct itself.” Global free market theory has surfed “the waves of fear and disorientation” while advancing an ideology of “unfettered capitalism,” leaving inequality and degradation in its wake (Naomi Klein, award-winning journalist, fellow at the London School of Economics, author and filmmaker).

The free market theory caters to self-interested desires and profit to the detriment of other peoples’ lives, all the while promising “freedom and prosperity.” Free market principles advocate that the rich and poor should be taxed at the same flat rate, despite creating a vast inequity; that, for example, education, health care, retirement pensions, national parks (and most any function intrinsic to essential governing) become privatized; that publicly-owned companies, services and their assets be auctioned off to private investors; and that besides allocating vast amounts of wealth and resources from public to private ownership, that in the free market the transfer of private debts to the public sector while public ownership is systematically dismantled ironically continue.

Teacher/Poet/Musician

Copyrights & Fair Use: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in my efforts to advance understanding of issues vital to a democracy. I believe this constitutes a “fair use” of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law.

Persona

"I want everything to be explained to me or nothing. And reason is impotent when it hears this cry from the heart. The mind aroused by this insistence seeks and finds nothing but contradiction and nonsense" —Albert Camus (1913-1960).